Brake Fluid Maintenance saves Money

Prevention is better than Cure: This rule applies to almost everything in life and the car is part of our daily lives, so it is not exempted from the said. We all know you have to change the oil for the wheels, but other things are not so obvious and yet, replacing them is equally important.

The advice I’m giving here are very general; ideally you check the instruction manual of your car or the maintenance book (also called service book ), which will specify the plans and sometimes, a ” check list “with the points we have to check and how often we do it.

The first thing to know is that some components of your vehicle not only wear out with use: also over time, so the periodic review of the maintenance plan are for every 10,000 km or one year, for example, even if you get to make the 10,000 km in a year, you should also inspect them.

Check Brake fluid for every 2 years

This is one of the elements that ages with time rather than kilometers. Most brake fluids used in the automobile is composed of a hydrophilic alcohol (the molecules having high affinity to water); this makes it go absorbing water in the atmosphere, which produces two very dangerous effects:

1) Low boiling point , so it boils at a lower temperature and can run out of brake too much heat down a port: the pedal becomes spongy and the car just stopped. Is known as brake fluid fading. The water encourages the formation of oxides and can emulsify the liquid , causing damage to the braking system.

2) Having an accident or repair the ABS valve body is infinitely more expensive to change (inevitably) the brake fluid in a maximum of two years. One liter of DOT 4 costs about 10 euros and one hour of labor; a hydraulic can multiply by 30 that amount.

The same fluid is usually used for the clutch mechanism on cars with hydraulic control: we replace also useful that we do the same with the brakes.